Kathleen Turner's Real Name: Mary Kathleen Turner

Quick answer: Kathleen Turner's documented original name is Mary Kathleen Turner. Britannica lists that form as an also-known-as and dates her birth to June 19, 1954, in Springfield, Missouri. The Golden Globes independently use Mary Kathleen Turner and the same date and place (Britannica; Golden Globes).

Real name and early life

She is known professionally as Kathleen Turner. Both sources agree on Mary Kathleen Turner and on a Springfield, Missouri, birth on June 19, 1954. Britannica says she is the daughter of a diplomat and lived in numerous foreign countries during childhood and early adolescence. She attended Southwest Missouri State University for two years, then transferred to the University of Maryland, graduating in 1977. Britannica says she did commercials before landing a role in the soap opera The Doctors in 1978.

Career highlights

Three years after The Doctors, Britannica says, she made a powerful movie debut in Body Heat (1981), a film noir in which she starred with William Hurt. William Hurt is not linked from this page. The Golden Globes independently list Body Heat and later The Accidental Tourist (1988), both directed by Lawrence Kasdan, and also list Romancing the Stone (1984) and The War of the Roses (1989) with Michael Douglas, Prizzi's Honor (1985) with Jack Nicholson, Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) with Nicolas Cage, and The Virgin Suicides (1999). Britannica independently records Romancing the Stone and its sequel, The Jewel of the Nile (1985), an Academy Award nomination for best actress for Peggy Sue Got Married, and later credits including V.I. Warshawski (1991) and Serial Mom (1994). Douglas and Nicholson do not have live RealNameOf biographies and are not linked here. Britannica also records her off-camera voice as Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), later voice work on King of the Hill (2000) and in Monster House (2006), and later film credits including Marley & Me (2008). The Golden Globes list wins for Romancing the Stone and Prizzi's Honor, later nominations for Peggy Sue Got Married and The War of the Roses, and a later role on The Kominsky Method (2019–21). Britannica says she received a Tony Award nomination for a 1990 Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, later played Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate in London (2000) and on Broadway (2002), and received another Tony nomination for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? A memoir, Send Yourself Roses, written with Gloria Feldt, appeared in 2008, according to Britannica.

Name notes for searchers

Mary Kathleen Turner is the documented original name; Kathleen Turner is the professional form used on screen and in billing. Searchers looking for the star of Body Heat or Romancing the Stone are usually aiming at the same person.